As has been said restoring the modern way now costs loads of money. There is a plan for the Monty drawn up by BW's Steven Lees which should be available somewhere. (Try Oswestry Public Library if you are still in the area.) Reading it we found depressing given how WRG put things back in the past. Certainly the implication is that boats won't be exactly allowed to cross the border in great numbers - nor will there be facilities for them if they do. Having been given sight of other BW plans for the Monty a lot of money has been spent on consultants who have little clue and produce some weird ideas compared to the current one. In all these plans the powers that be keep on sighting the benifits of opening the canal to local business using the figures for unrestricted boat use as in Llangollen complete with Marinas. Yet these figures are pie in the sky when one reads that numbers of boat movements will be restricted to current level at Frankton and further down a lot less. This restriction is not helped by all the Welsh Monty being SSSIs and the mob over the border (at least the mob in control) not wanting any Frankton water (augmented by water from the Morda river - including Oswestry (EU approved treated sewage which is the reason the plants grew so well that the canal got noticed in the first place) crossing the border. So we get a stop lock and this will allow 2,500 lockfuls from the Tanant feeder. (In reality this river is reduced to a trickle in summer so the estimated lockfuls might be available only in winter - like the Basingstoke.) And, of course over the border there is the problem of boat engines, boat waste water and all the rest - including bow hauling only in some places allowed in the plan and horses to haul definately not allowed. Come the revolution.
--- On Wed, 22/7/09, Steve Wood <[email protected]> wrote: From: Steve Wood <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Montgomery restoration (was: I am going boating) To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, 22 July, 2009, 4:39 PM David/all I've struggled to find up-to-date information on the Montgomery restoration during my visit. There are a number of interpretation panels (of various ages) along the line and quite a bit of general stuff available on line but I found nothing that explains what the big current issues are and when anything significant, like when the reopening of some/all the closed section for example, might happen. I can see that there are dropped bridges all over the place but I'm curious about where plans are at in doing something about such things. I was a little surprised to see serious work going on down at Brynderwyn on Monday (presumably paid contractors rather than volunteers if it's a weekday?) when there seems little chance of boats getting there for many years. Surely a significant part of any money spent now on doing up sections that can't be used is wasted, isn't it? The condition of the lock gates at Carreghofa (replaced in 1982, never used and now in a poor state) and the lack of depth and huge amount of weed growth in the open stretch illustrate that to my eyes, but maybe I'm missing something. I know I'm a latecomer given that people have been banging on about it for 40 years or more but it's been a new discovery for me this week. I can now see why people get so excited about this project. Steve NB Bream [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
